Unamusing, Off-Topic, Drive-By Comment

on an otherwise great column, on an important subject by Kelly Vlahos at Antiwar.


"All respect to Kelly, but don't be tricked into actually watching the Gauntlet. Clint made several stinkers with his girlfriend at the time, Bugeyes, and one, Josie Wales, was awesome in spite of her presence, but this was beyond excusable - they escape from a house that is completely demolished by small arms fire to the point of collapse because it has a sewer pipe large enough to crawl through that leads and opens into a convenient ravine, he shoots down a chopper with a pistol (Stallone!), and drives a bus through several hundred cops firing automatic weapons but nobody shoots the tires, even accidently.
Do not view, even on a bet, (except for Josie Wales) ANY Sondra Locke film. Fair warning on The Gauntlet; Worst Movie Ever!"

I should restrain my comic book guy alias Jeff Albertson, but she touched a nerve. Locke later sued Eastwood for derailing her career. AS IF... Evidently, she's a Country Singer, now. Imagine a film about a Musical about a song about a career in film and music. Does it never end?

All-time WME is maybe smokey and the bandit II - even dom deluise couldn't save it.
I wonder why those 60's and 70's movie's all suck so bad. They blew the script budget on coke? The writers blew the script budget on coke?

CIA, cutting losses, to sell NYT to Tony Soprano

"Rosebud..."

Ariana ought to put in a bid. She's on a bit of a roll, and probably has more COH than chump. I heard he was bankrupt. Seriously, how do you come back from real bankrupt? get a loan from the "special" bank that doesn't care about assets or collateral or balance sheets, plus getting to continue to use the shit that you don't  technically own and your hundreds of creditors all say that's ok tony, pay me back when you're flush, and the sluts are pressing in so close you can barely get a hand free to sign more checks with.

 "Hell yeah I can run a money losing propaganda rag. I've known enough MILF to know how to break a old gray lady down like a shotgun. Clean 'er breech to muzzle. Increase circulation british style. They invented class, you know."

When Twitter Met Meatspace

From the Shadow Secretary of State, Michael Scheuer via Lew Rockwell. I'm trying to cut down on re-re-blogging, but this is important,

• The leaders of Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt were secular dictators. One thing each of these secular leaders did was suppress Islam and persecute, imprison, or kill Muslims who held too closely to their faith, spoke too publicly and vociferously in its support, or opposed by word or deed the un-Islamic actions of their government. It is worth mentioning that each of these leaders was paid handsomely by U.S. and Western governments for the persecution of Islam. Needless to say, when the tyrants departed, the people of each country became much freer to profess, live, and apply their faith. Islam, at last, had become the way.
• The leaders of Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt were master jailers. Their prisons were full of convicts. There were many common felons and crooks, but there was just as many – if not more – mujahedin fighters, theorists, logisticians, clerics, etc. When the Islamist Spring took down the master jailers, the prisons were opened and the freed Islamist fighters and their supporters returned to local militant groups and traveled far and wide to join al-Qaeda and other such organizations. These men had maintained and probably strengthened their faith while jailed, and they likewise burned to avenge the treatment they had received while incarcerated. Not surprisingly, this result of the Islamist Spring brought mujahedin groups around the world large numbers of experienced, skilled, and angry reinforcements.
• The leaders of Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt were experts at keeping almost all weaponry under their governments’ control, just as President Obama seeks to do in the United States. At the time of the Islamist Spring, the militaries of Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt were exceptionally well-armed with up-to-date weaponry, and their many arsenals – like those of Sadam Hussein in 2003 – were stuffed to overflowing with reserve weapons and ammunition. When the tyrants fell, each country’s internal-security apparatus naturally disintegrated and the arsenals were thoroughly looted by Islamists who ferried away massive amounts of modern arms and munitions for safe keeping in rural areas or in remote regions of nearby countries. Thus the Islamist Spring yielded an international mujahedin force better armed than at anytime since its inception in the 1980s.

and delicious for the end-zone antics:


"I draw attention to myself on this occasion because I know that I am far from the brightest bulb in the shed. In their periodic efforts to get me fired from Georgetown University, in fact, my detractors among pro-Israel U.S. citizens tell the Georgetown deans that not only am I an anti-Semite but the school where I earned my Ph. D. – the University of Manitoba in Canada – is a "diploma mill" and that I am therefore unqualified to teach at the graduate level. Though, of course, I disagree with this conclusion and their slander of fine university, let us suppose that they are correct and that I am a bear of little or even almost no brain. How then could I have been so right about the Islamist Spring and the disasters it would cause, while Mrs. Clinton (Yale); Senator McCain (U.S. Naval Academy); Prime Minister Cameron (Oxford); Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford), and President Obama (Harvard and Columbia) could be so nearly 100-percent wrong?"

 I took one undergraduate course in International Law and almost failed that, and yet I share Michael's overwhelming record of accurate predictions compared to our "exquisitely educated betters and their media acolytes". It is of only minor psychological interest whether they believe their own lies. For the most part, they know exactly what they are doing and the results are fully foreseeable and intended. It is Arson on a tremendous scale, and not a backfire to burn itself out, but meant to spread to Africa and beyond, with the end to eliminate any "inconvenient" (not suitable for tax-farming) populations. It seems impossible to stop without Divine interference, and it's my understanding He tried a couple of times already without much immediate result. All we can do is hope we're out of the tent when the clowns burn the whole circus down.

You Know What Would Be Awesome

My opinions of most politicians are greatly influenced by the opinions of their enemies. The only positive opinions I have of Obama result from the enmity of the Warfare crowd. I had expected him to be more subservient, but the mere fact that he may not be dependable in the quest for expansion of the empire, although a pretty low bar, is adequate.

So/but now he's recommending "common sense" (Is that back in style?) need for more "background checks" on gun-buyers. I hope they want to see everyone's "long form" birth certificate. Works well for driver's licenses, green cards and SS, too!

Now that the French are returning to their proper role as colonial world revolutionaries bringing civilization to the unenlightened, instead of the other-way-around for a change, "we" can start concentrating on domestic problems. With any luck the economy will implode again when the decreased sales in small arms and ammo kicks the GDP negative. Hopefully, Obama will have his hands full sending out SNAP cards and housing vouchers when there are no more producers and nothing more to tax. "Over-reach" is in the democrats' DNA, just as "Underwhelm" is surely in the republicans'. Something went dreadfully wrong in England about 500 years ago, I, and others more erudite and articulate, suspect.

Transcontinental Meditation - Evidence of Weakness?

Let's you and him fight!

I might be a reactionary, but as far as religion goes I'm afraid (almost literally) that the doctrine of selection or ideas of pre-ordained, select souls that are destined to success in this world, and the next, may be true. That in fact worldly success was proof of being "saved". How else to explain the eternally baffling why/how some people are golden and untouchable*, unless as favored by some terrible and perverse unknowable deity? You might think this is funny if you knew what a slacker I am, and many people are their own worst enemy, but it's world wide and history deep - the shit always rises. I don't think I can ever stop resenting what is evidently unalterable reality. I even want to resent it, but the non-religious explanation, that the strong and ruthless will always prevail, is almost equally unacceptable, and either would suggest that resistance is futile.

One of my biggest takeaways from Carlyle, was that political history is very continuous and deeper than wars, revolutions, genocides, etc., which seems almost like mere noise and drama compared to the steady unchanging nature of man to breed, plant, build, and trade, while being continually harassed, threatened, robbed, enslaved etc. by their superiors, who are treated similarly, but sometimes more gently, by theirs. Carlyle was miffed, 150 years ago, because the worst had risen, by sham of democracy and reform, to replace the natural order of rule by a true elite, under God (for him a necessary pairing, logically, if the elite were not "elect", they would not be "true"). The only difference with today's situation is we can only know that the elite is not true, but have no real explanation beyond the lengthy indictment of facts and allegations. They obviously suck, yet somehow never suffer any temporal punishment beyond the occasional fine.

At least Caryle could be content that sins would be eventually paid and justice rendered. What do we have? Resentment, ridicule and occasional schadenfreude (my favorite!), and a dim hope that more people can get their personal lives in order and leave the other peasants alone while the "nobles" fight it out. Despite the endless discussions, we don't seem to have evolved much, and maybe worse, the standards of conduct seem to be getting lower as the firepower increases. Please fasten your seat belts and put your trays in the upright position. Note the location of emergency exits (if any).

PM update; from commenter Radical Marijuana on Zero Hedge

"Basically what has happened is the human ecology has bifurcated into a relatively small minority that acted like Vicious Wolves, and a much larger majority that acted like Zombie Sheeple. The Wolves have taught the Sheeple to bleat their morality. The majority of people are constantly told that everyone needs to be better Sheeple. The reality is that the actual systems are run by the Wolves, and the only good solutions are for everyone to become better Wolves. ...
None of the other economic problems could ever be resolved better without that quantum leap to understand evolutionary ecology better. Blaming the lying politicians, or the public that is tricked by them, is way too superficial, although it is partially correct. The greater TRUTH is profoundly paradoxical, since it requires understanding how and why warfare was the oldest and best developed social science, and therefore, understanding the psychology of the various actors within that system."





* I like this guy Israel Shamir.  International man of mystery

Does the Memory Hole have an Event Horizon

Can a physical hypothesis be used as a metaphor regarding a literary construct in order to better understand the workings of those who direct our resources and attention?

Was there ever so bright and brief meteor as the Petraeus "scandal"? Google has a few stories about the secondary and tertiary characters, but not much on the principals. Where's he? Vegas? Harvard? She transfered back to Deeaieh? That's all there is? A restaurant cheque and a couple of candy wrappers? Neatly done, oh invisible masters, who ever you are!

Cossaks Regain Control of Moral Steppes, Westeners Remain Puzzled

from RT

"On Tuesday, Russia threw its support behind a UN resolution that calls on Washington to end the trade embargo, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said at a meeting of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. "We hope that after the US government eases its embargo in certain areas – in particular, on US citizens' visiting relatives in Cuba, as well as on making money transfers and postal orders. Other steps for the final lifting of the embargo will follow," the Russian ambassador said from the rostrum of the UN General Assembly. He stressed that Russia has consistently called for the termination of the embargo, in addition to halting “political and military pressure that aggravates confrontational tendencies in international relations." 

The UN General Assembly on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to condemn the US commercial, economic and financial embargo against Cuba.

 Russia was among 188 UN member states that voted in favor of the resolution, which calls on Washington to lift the embargo against Cuba "as soon as possible." 

Only the United States, Israel and Palau voted against the document."

Let's stipulate that RT is obviously a propaganda organ that mostly highlights American failures and doesn't highlight Russian ones; and further stipulate Russian policy is very much reactively against American, with a high probability that it would move into any areas conceded by American power. This move is significant when paired with recent changes in American law to enable cash transfers to Cuba, and the recent news that Cuba will allow un- or anyway less-restricted emigration.


This should be headline news, but it doesn't seem to be. I assume this is because there is a lot happening back-channel that would be damaging to parse out in the public sphere. Braver people than I could try to determine why Israel voted against it or what are their ties to the anti-cuban lobby. Smarter people than I might explore the whole embargo issue, and I'm sure they have. I just say Madelaine Allbright; case closed.  My basic objection is that only the powerless suffer from embargoes while their leaders, popular or not are the very last to feel the effects. We have given up the moral high ground, so we will lose every propaganda advantage. Straussians say it doesn't matter, but since I don't want any Empire (including ours) to succeed or prosper, I welcome the pushback. Pat Buchanan marked the battle for Falluja as the high water mark for the American forward momentum. I hope that this is confirmation that it continues to recede to at least "realist" levels, if never constitutional or rational levels.